Rivals Requesting U.s. Mediation

May 13, 2000|By JOHN POMFRET The Washington Post

BEIJING — China and Taiwan for the first time have begun to ask the United States to intervene in diplomatic attempts to settle their longstanding dispute over the island's status, putting the U.S. government in a delicate position.

Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's top official handling China policy, told reporters in Taipei Friday that Taiwan's new government hopes that the United States will play a more active role in helping China and Taiwan improve relations. Here in Beijing, a Western source said Chinese officials also have asked the United States to "play a helpful role" in seeking improved relations.

"This is uncommon and new," he said. A Chinese source confirmed that China is seeking the assistance.

From the 1950s until 1979, the United States was ready to go to war to defend against a Chinese attack on Taiwan, where the Nationalist Chinese retreated in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's Communist forces. The United States broke relations with Taiwan in 1979 as part of its renewal of relations with China. But the same year, Congress passed the vaguely worded Taiwan Relations Act that mandates that the United States must provide the means for Taiwan to defend itself.

Although this U.S. defense pledge has always hovered over the China-Taiwan dispute, the suggestions from Taiwan and China that the United States intervene diplomatically to play the role of facilitator marks a departure for both sides in the dangerous standoff.

The change reflects a vastly changed political landscape across the Taiwan Strait. For the first time, an opposition candidate -- and one who has advocated Taiwan's independence from China -- has been elected president of Taiwan. Chen Shui-bian will be inaugurated May 20.

The requests for help represent a challenge to the United States. Since 1982, the United States has vowed not to mediate between the two sides because of a belief that there was no immediate solution and because of fears that failed mediation could ruin U.S. relations with Taipei, which maintains a powerful lobby in Washington, or with Beijing, one of the world's nuclear powers.

Beijing for decades has argued that Taiwan is a wayward province of China and that Americans should stop interfering in "internal affairs" -- specifically that Washington should stop selling Taiwan weapons.

As for Taiwan, the government for decades wanted no American involvement in negotiations. In 1982, the Reagan administration issued six assurances to Taiwan: in one of them United States agreed not to mediate between China and Taiwan. Taiwan's president, Lee Teng-hui, bristled when U.S. officials attempted last year to pressure his government into reaching "interim" agreements with China.

Western sources stressed that China and Taiwan have both been vague about what they want in their new attitudes and have not asked for American mediation along the lines of the Middle East peace process.

"We need somebody to help build the bridge," Tsai said, although she declined to specify what kind of help the United States could provide. "It would require some creativity."

Part of China's motivation for asking for American help stems from having backed itself into a corner. China has demanded that Chen embrace the "one China" principle before relations between the two sides can improve. But during his inauguration speech Chen has said that he will not embrace that principle.

"Right now we have all these people coming over here saying they represent Chen's views and we don't know who to believe," said a Chinese source with close ties to the security services. "We need to have direct contact with Chen. But we need it to be done diplomatically. We think the U.S. can play a role as a facilitator."

The Western source said the risks of American diplomatic intervention between the two sides is great.

"You're walking a fine line," said the source. "You can fall off either way easily. No one in the United States is going to oppose reducing tensions in the Taiwan Strait. The danger is if you succumb to the temptation to come up with a solution to problems that are unresolvable for at least a decade. Nothing right now is going to be acceptable to either side."